Solar Panel Chargerate changes in Orbit

[itsaps]

Hello dear Kerbonauts,

I'm recently playing KSP with a bunch of realism mods and had a long way to this status of my game now. There were a few obstacles with compatilities between the mods and althought I could solve most of them, a few strange behaviors still occour like this: I have a craft with solar panels in LEO and after coming from the earth shadow, each panel initially creates ~80W power, but only some minutes before hiding behind earth again, the panels produce the rated 320W power each. That is pretty strange that it is somehow reduced by a factor of 4 suddenly. I could reproduce it with an other craft but on different states in the orbit, e.g. the first 20% in orbit are on full power, the rest with 1/4 th.

Could someone experience a similar behavior? Any help would be very welcome

 

 

Setup: KSP 1.1.3
My mod list is over 70+ but most relevant are: RO, RSS, Kerbalism, TACS....

Edited February 1, 2017 by itsaps

[Streetwind]

Your description is a little vague. Screenshots from various points in your orbit might help, especially with open rightclick menus on the solar panels.

[itsaps]

Seems that a restart of the game has formed the issue into something else. The power over the orbit is now constant (i will insert screenshots if it happens to change over the orbit again) but the output is only 1/3 of the specified power.

As a background info: in the previouse post i have found out, that the nominal power of this panel should be 120W and I was then wondering about the 320W max power so I looked into the config files and found out that due to a mistake I had scaled all solar panels chargerates to a double value. Althought I know it's not the factor I was searching for, I reverted this change, also to see a effect on the panels power. So now that I scaled it down by 1/2 - the value got static and is reduced to 1/8 of the previouse high-value or 1/2 of the low-value before. The 1/2 would a least match my correction, but still there is this thing I do not understand: Why does the value not match the specified one, even if the chargerate in the debug menu does reflect the rigth one (0.00012096)? The issue with the orbit changes seems to have been a glitch and hopefully stays so.

The same scaling also happens to fixed solar modules, e.g. the fixed panel in the screenshot should have 31.6W -> has now 10.2W.

To exclude a display-only error, when I turn the craft 90° away from the sun (so it shall be minus 6 x 41W) the electric consumtions goes from 0.44 to 0.65 kW/s.
The front panels still note around 7W power so the calculation goes: (0.65 - 0.44 + 3 * 0.007) / 6 = 0,0385 W/panel. So the display is in the same range as the consumtion.

 

Can anyone think of something thats scaling the panels power in background?
I do know that that the game scales the power by the distance from the sun, but I thougth the output at earth (RSS) at 1 AU should be the specified one, shoudn't it?

 

The panel I displayed above is "solarPanels4", a modified stock part. The modifications I could find for it follow here:

Kerbalism

@PART[solarPanels4]:NEEDS[VenStockRevamp]:AFTER[Kerbalism]
{
  @MODULE[ModuleDeployableSolarPanel]
  {
    @chargeRate = 0.40
  }
}

 

Kerbalism

@PART[solarPanels4]:FOR[Kerbalism]
{
  @MODULE[ModuleDeployableSolarPanel]
  {
    @chargeRate = 0.48
  }
}

 

Realism overhaul

@PART[solarPanels4]:FOR[RealismOverhaul]
{
	%RSSROConfig = True
	@mass = 0.0054	// Level 2 moving @ 0.0006t/m^2 + 0.005t/m^2
	@title = XT1 Solar Panel Array Mk1
	@description = Extendable sun-tracking Level 2 solar panel. 0.96m^2.
	@MODULE[ModuleDeployableSolarPanel]
	{
		@chargeRate = 0.12096	// Level 2 @ 0.126kW/m^2
	}
}
@PART[solarPanels4]:FOR[RealismOverhaul]:NEEDS[VenStockRevamp]
{
	%rescaleFactor = 0.631
}

 

Squad

PART
{
	name = solarPanels4
	module = Part
	author = NovaSilisko
	mesh = model.mu
	rescaleFactor = 1
	node_attach = 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0
	TechRequired = advElectrics
	entryCost = 3800
	cost = 380
	category = Utility
	subcategory = 0
	title = OX-4L 1x6 Photovoltaic Panels
	manufacturer = Probodobodyne Inc
	description = The OX-4 is similar in design to the SP series solar panels, but without the heavy casing.  Includes passive radiators on the reverse side for better heat dissipation. WARNING: Not retractable once deployed!
	attachRules = 0,1,0,0,1
	mass = 0.0175
	dragModelType = default
	maximum_drag = 0.2
	minimum_drag = 0.2
	angularDrag = 1
	crashTolerance = 8
	maxTemp = 1200 // = 3200
	bulkheadProfiles = srf
	thermalMassModifier = 2.0
	emissiveConstant = 0.95
	heatConductivity = 0.04 // 1/3 the default
	tags = array charge deploy e/c elect energ extend generat (light photo power solar sun track unfold volt watt	
	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleDeployableSolarPanel
		animationName = solarpanels4
		resourceName = ElectricCharge
		chargeRate = 1.64
		retractable = false
	}
}

 

My own config:

/calm down the produced electricity to the nominal values (they were a factor 1000 too high)
@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleDeployableSolarPanel]]:NEEDS[Kerbalism]:NEEDS[RealismOverhaul]:FINAL
{
  @MODULE[ModuleDeployableSolarPanel]
  {
    // @flowMult = 1
    @flowMult = 1000

    @chargeRate /= 1000

    @RESOURCE[ElectricCharge]
    {
      @rate /= 1000
      @displayUnitMult = 1000000
    }
  }
}

again Realism overhaul:

// Set up solar panel displays.
@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleDeployableSolarPanel]]:FOR[ROSolar]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleDeployableSolarPanel],*:HAS[!RESOURCE[*]]
	{
		RESOURCE
		{
			name = ElectricCharge
			rate = #$../chargeRate$
		}
	}
	@MODULE[ModuleDeployableSolarPanel],*
	{
		%flowUnits = Watts
		%flowFormat = N1
		%flowMult = 1000
	}
}
@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[*]:HAS[@RESOURCE[ElectricCharge]]]:FOR[zzzElectricityUnits]
{
	@MODULE,*:HAS[@RESOURCE[ElectricCharge]]
	{
		@RESOURCE[ElectricCharge]
		{
			%varyTime = False
			%useSI = True
			%displayUnitMult = 1000
			%unitName = Watts
		}
	}
}

 

That it so far. I hope I do not spam you too much... xD

 

Edited February 2, 2017 by itsaps
picture missing

[itsaps]

Ok since I could not figure out what is the origin of the downscale factor I just modified my power multipliers and this works now. I wonder when the orbital changes come back....

[itsaps]

On 2.2.2017 at 8:52 AM, Streetwind said:

Your description is a little vague. Screenshots from various points in your orbit might help, especially with open rightclick menus on the solar panels.

The orbit introduced power change on the solar-panels is still here, now the screenshots follow.
What I could find out already, it sems there is no dependency on:

- altitude
- inclination
- degree to periapsis
- temperature
- biome
- remote connection status

But the higher I raise the craft - the shorter the zone seems to be. And I think there is at least one quickload needed (my simulation mod does it always) to enable the behavior.

 

Before the zone:

Entered zone: 4 times power

In the zone

Still in the zone

And finally left decreasing to the nominal value

[Streetwind]

18 minutes ago, itsaps said:

The orbit introduced power change on the solar-panels is still here, now the screenshots follow.

Considering how many deeply invasive mods you have installed, this is pretty much guaranteed a cross-mod issue. I'd suspect Kerbalism first, then (if you have it) Kopernicus, then whatever else comes with a plugin and changes either solar panels or the solar system. You're probably going to have to bite the bullet and try to replicate it on a fresh install, adding mods one by one until either it triggers or you have a bug-free game to import your save into. Even mod authors cannot troubleshoot cross-mod issues if they don't know which mods interact to cause the bug.

[itsaps]

Thanks, the mod extraction will now be my next step